THE IRREVOCABLE VOTE
Danton returned was Danton in action. Force possessed the party once
more and drove it resistless to its goal. Permanent Session was moved,
and carried--permanent Session of the National Convention--until its
near five hundred members had voted one by one on the three
all-important questions: Louis Capet, is he guilty, or not guilty?
Shall the Convention judge him, or shall there be a further delay, an
appeal to the people of France? If the Convention judges, what is its
judgment--imprisonment, banishment, or death?
Forthwith began the days of the Three Votings, stirring and dramatic
days seen through the mist of years and the dust-clouds raised by
groping historians. What must they have been to live through?
It was Wednesday evening, January 16, and lamps were lit in the Hall of
the Convention, but their glow shone chiefly on the tribune, and beyond
there crowded the shadows, densely mysterious. Vergniaud, the
President, wore a haggard face--his eyes were hot and weary, for he was
of the Gironde, and the Gironde began to know that the day was lost. He
called the names sonorously, with a voice that had found its pitch and
kept it in spite of fatigue; and as he called, the long procession of
members rose, passed for an instant to the lighted tribune, and voted
audibly in the hearing of the whole Convention. Each man voted, and
passed again into the shadow. So we see them--between the dark past and
the dark future--caught for an instant by that one flash which brands
them on history's film for ever.
Loud Jacobin voices boomed "Death," and ranted of treason; epigrams were
made to the applause of the packed galleries. For the people of Paris
had crowded in, and every available inch of room was packed. Here were
the _tricoteuses_--those knitting women of the Revolution, whose steel
needles were to flash before the eyes of so many of the guillotine's
waiting victims, before the eyes indeed of many and many an honourable
Deputy voting here to-night. Here were swart men of St. Antoine's
quarter--brewers, bakers, oilmen, butchers, all the trades--whispering,
listening, leaning over the rail, now applauding to the echo, now
hissing indignantly, as the vote pleased or displeased them. Death
demanded with a spice of wit pleased the most--a voice faltering on a
timorous recommendation to mercy evoked the loudest jeers.
Dangeau sat in his place and heard the long, reverberating roll of
names, until his own struck strangely on his ear. He rose and mounted
into the smoky, yellow glare of the lamps that swung above the tribune.
Vergniaud faced him, dignified and calm.
"Your vote, Citizen?" and Dangeau, in clear, grave reply:
"Death, Citizen President."
Here there was nothing to tickle the waiting ears above, and he passed
down the steps again in silence, whilst another succeeded him, and to
that other another yet. All that long night, and all the next long day,
the voices never ceased. Now they rang loud and full, now low and
hesitating; and after each vote came the people's comment of applause,
dissent, or silence.
Dangeau passed into one of the lower galleries reserved for members and
their friends. His limbs were cramped with the long session, and his
throat was parched and dry; coffee was to be had, he knew, and he was in
quest of it. As he got clear of the thronged entrance, a strange sight
met his eye, for the gallery resembled a box at the opera, infinitely
extended.
Bare-necked women flashed their diamonds and their wit, chattering,
laughing, and exchanging sallies with their friends.
Refreshments were being passed round, and Deputies who were at leisure
bowed, and smiled, and did the honours, as if it were a place of
amusement, and not a hall of judgment.
A bold, brown-faced woman, with magnificent black eyes, her full figure
much accentuated by a flaring tricolour sash, swept to the front of the
gallery, and looked down. In her wake came a sleepy, white-fleshed
blonde, mincing as she walked. She too wore the tricolour, and
Dangeau's lips curled at the desecration.
"Philippe is voting," cried the brown woman loudly. "See, Jeanne, there
he comes!"
Dangeau looked down, and saw Philippe Egalite, sometime Philippe
d'Orleans, prince of the blood and cousin of the King, pass up the
tribune steps. Under the lamps his face showed red and blotched, his
eyes unsteady; but he walked jauntily, twisting a seal at his fob. His
attire bespoke the dandy, his manner the poseur. Opposite to Vergniaud
he bowed with elegance, and cried in a voice of loud effrontery, "I vote
for Death."
Through the Assembly ran a shudder of recoil. Natural feeling was not
yet brayed to dust in the mortar of the Revolution, and it thrilled and
quickened to the spectacle of kinsman rising against kinsman, and the
old blood royal of France turning from its ruined head publicly, and in
the sight of all men.
"It is good that Louis should die, but it is not good that Philippe
should vote for his death. Has the man no decency?" growled Danton at
Dangeau's ear.
Long after, when his own hour was striking, Philippe d'Orleans protested
that he had voted upon his soul and conscience--the soul whose existence
he denied, and the conscience whose voice he had stifled for forty
years. Be that between him and that soul and conscience, but, as he
descended the tribune steps, Girondin, Jacobin, and Cordelier alike drew
back from him, and men who would have cried death to the King's cousin,
cried none the less, "Shame on Egalite!"
Only the bold brown woman and her companion laughed. The former even
leaned across the bar and kissed her hand, waving, and beckoning him.
Dangeau's gaze, half sardonically curious, half disgusted, rested upon
the scene.
"All posterity will gaze upon what is done this day," he said in a low
voice to Danton--"and they will see this."
"The grapes are trodden, the wine ferments, and the scum rises,"
returned Danton on a deep, growling note.
"Such scum as this?"
"Just such scum as this!"
Below, one of the Girondins voted for imprisonment, and the upper
galleries hissed and rocked.
"Death, death, death!" cried the next in order.
"Death, and not so much talk about it!"
"Death, by all means death!"
The blonde woman, Jeanne Fresnay, was pricking off the votes on a card.
"Ah--at last!" she laughed. "I thought I should never get the hundred.
Now we have one for banishment, ten for imprisonment, and a hundred for
death."
The brown Marguerite Didier produced her own card--a dainty trifle tied
with a narrow tricolour ribbon.
"You are wrong," she said--"it is but eight for imprisonment. You give
him two more chances of life than there is any need to."
"That's because I love him so well. Is he not Philippe's cousin?"
drawled the other, making the correction.
Philippe himself leaned suddenly between them.
"I should be jealous, it appears," he said smoothly. "Who is it that you
love so much?"
The bare white shoulders were lifted a little farther out of their very
scanty drapery.
"Eh--that charming cousin Veto of yours. Since you love him so well, I
am sure I may love him too. May I not?"
Philippe's laugh was a little hoarse, though ready enough.
"But certainly, chere amie," he said. "Have I not just proved my
affection to the whole world?"
Mademoiselle Didier laughed noisily and caught him by the arm.
"There, let him go," she said with impatience. "At the last he bores
one, your good cousin. We want more bonbons, and I should like coffee.
It is cold enough to freeze one, with so much coming and going."
Again Dangeau turned to his companion.
"An edifying spectacle, is it not?" he asked.
Danton shrugged his great shoulders.
"Mere scum and froth," he said. "Let it pass. I want to speak to you.
You are to be sent on mission."
"On mission?"
"Why, yes. You can be useful, or I am much mistaken. It is this way.
The South is unsatisfactory. There is a regular campaign of newspaper
calumny going on, and something must be done, or we shall have trouble.
I thought of sending you and Bonnet. You are to make a tour of the
cities, see the principal men, hold public meetings, explain our aims,
our motives. It is work which should suit you, and more important than
any you could do in Paris at present."
Dangeau's eyes sparkled; a longing for action flared suddenly up in him.
"I will do my best," he said in a new, eager voice.
"You should start as soon as this business is over." Danton's heavy
brow clouded. "Faugh! It stops us at every turn. I have a thousand
things to do, and Louis blocks the way to every one. Wait till my hands
are free, and you shall see what we will make of France!"
"I will be ready," said Dangeau.
Danton had called for coffee, and stood gulping it as he talked. Now,
as he set the cup down, he laid his hand on Dangeau's shoulder a moment,
and then moved off muttering to himself:
"This place is stifling--the scent, the rouge. What do women do in an
affair of State?"
In Dangeau's mind rose a vision of Aline de Rochambeau, cool, delicate,
and virginal, and the air of the gallery became intolerable. As he went
out in Danton's wake, he passed a handsome, dark-eyed girl who stared at
him with an inviting smile. Lost in thought, he bowed very slightly and
was gone. His mind was all at once obsessed with the vision he had
evoked. It came upon him very poignantly and sweetly, and
yet--yet--that vote of his, that irrevocable vote. What would she say
to that?
Duty led men by strange ways in those strange days. Only of one thing
could a man take heed--that he should be faithful to his ideals, and
constant in the path which he had chosen, even though across it lay the
shadows of disillusion and bitterness darkening to the final abyss.
There could be no turning back.
The dark girl flushed and bit an angrily twitching lip as she stared
after Dangeau's retreating figure. When Hebert joined her, she turned
her shoulder on him, and threw him a black look.
"Why did you leave me?" she cried hotly. "Am I to stand here alone, for
any beast to insult?"
"Poor, fluttered dove," said Hebert, sneering. He slid an easy arm
about her waist. "Come then, Therese, no sulks. Look over and watch
that fool Girondin yonder. He 's dying, they say, but must needs be
carried here to vote for mercy."
As he spoke he drew her forward, and still with a dark glow upon her
cheeks she yielded.